


Surrender

by Pyreite



Series: The Shepard's Fate [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Arguing, Confrontations, Drama, F/M, Interspecies Relationship(s), Mass Effect 3, Post-Mass Effect 3, Romance, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 10:57:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3324974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyreite/pseuds/Pyreite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[ME-3 Destruction Ending]  Shepard needs to understand that surrendering to the one that loves her best will leave her neither weak nor powerless.</p><p>Warnings:  Contains kissing, cuddling, pure Shakarian fluff, hints of citrus but no actual lemonade, a lover’s quarrel, the use of coarse language (i.e. swearing), an attempt to apologise, and a glimpse into Turian mating instincts.  Discretion is advised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Surrender

Shepard found him leaning over the Main Battery’s central console.  He was calibrating another firing algorithm to the parameters of peak performance.  She watched his fingers dance over the holographic keyboard while his booted toes tapped a beat to some inane tune that only he could hear.  Shepard rolled her eyes when she saw the piece of equipment that had become an essential part of his wardrobe.  She was certain the visor’s Kuwashii-style frame was permanently welded to his skull.

Garrus only took it off when he sleepy or more interested in sex than in calculating the ETA of an incoming target. He had a one-track mind when it came to peeling off her clothes. Shepard loved the attention, but having her underwear shredded every time they were intimate was fast becoming _expensive_. She fervently hoped that a recent investment into a durable line of asari lingerie would pay dividends. Now was as good an opportunity as ever, despite their impending nuptials, to take her new brassiere and panty-combo for a test-drive.

Shepard wandered into Garrus's personal space, slipping her arms around his middle, as she laid her chin on the cool metal encasing his shoulder.  The suit of heavy-armour he still wore (more out of habit than necessity) had been expertly patched.  Tali had done an excellent job of scouring the burns and sealing the bullet-holes that had breached the outer-plating.  The paint-job was a work in progress, but Shepard appreciated the monogram in the middle of Garrus’s armoured cowl.  She leaned over to kiss his scarred mandible as she drummed her fingertips on the stylised ‘ _S_ ’ on his breastplate encircled by a pair of feathered wings.

The monogram (dubbed ‘ _Shepard’s Seduction by an Archangel_ ’ by Joker) was a symbol of pride worn by many of the crew.  Shepard preferred the Palaveni version tattooed into the curve of her lower-back that had Garrus’s name initialled in place of the capital letter of her surname.  She grinned unrepentantly when her beau coughed, mandibles clacking, as he looked at her out of the corner of his eye.  His head shook disapprovingly.  Shepard squeezed Garrus’s waist knowing that he couldn’t feel the pressure through the plates of his armour.

The action distracted her workaholic lover from his duties.  Shepard brazenly rapped her knuckles on the silver pelvic-guard between his thighs.  She smirked wickedly when she heard that delightful flanging groan.  Shepard deliberately bumped her hip against his, ruining Garrus’s concentration, and winked cheekily whilst he glared.  She smiled when he huffed indignantly. 

Garrus was the consummate professional, but could be wonderfully feisty if needled long enough to rouse his ire.  Shepard slid in the way of the gauntleted fingers tweaking a new set of firing algorithms. Her lover's mandibles pulled tight to his plated-chin, a sign that he was annoyed by her intrusion into his domain.  He had a death-grip on the Main Battery’s central console.  Shepard saw how his gauntleted thumbs and fingers scored the bed of black steel underneath the holographic keyboard. 

She watched the way his mandibles twitched when the console beeped, the keys flashed red, and a sequence of error messages scrawled across the screen. 

Garrus was dangerously close to losing that formidable turian self-control. 

Shepard decided to press her advantage before she was ushered out the door.

“Did I catch you at a bad time?”

Shepard felt Garrus stiffen when she cupped his jaw.  She stroked the raised ridges and scarred hollows marring his mandible, chin, and the softer un-plated skin of his throat.  The scar-tissue, long healed but still sensitive to touch, won Shepard an involuntary flanging moan.  The turian was trying to resist her ministrations.  She was disappointed when Garrus seized her wrist, pinned her hand to the console, and rounded on her with three months’ worth of pent-up frustration.

“ _Damn it_!  _The Thanix isn’t going to calibrate itself_!  _You can’t be in here while I’m trying to work, Shepard_!  _You’re too distracting_!  _Now do me a favour and get out_!”

Shepard took Garrus’s testiness in stride.  She could see what Tali had meant by the phrase ‘ _He’s_ _acting like a Krogan_ ’.  Her lover’s abrupt cut-off from all pleasurable activities until the night of their impending nuptials had made him downright _nasty_.  Garrus was obviously overstressed, overtaxed, and in need of some tender-loving-care.  Shepard hadn’t heard any complaints from the crew, but while she appreciated their loyalty, she couldn’t condone the hot-headed turian’s erratic behaviour. 

“I’d prefer to stay right here”, she countered smoothly. 

The battle of wills began. 

Garrus scowled. 

Shepard returned his baleful glower with a smile. 

The tension between them was a blend of exasperation, the clash of two forceful personalities, and a natural inclination to defy authority. 

Shepard wondered if Garrus might be more amiable if she stowed away with him inside their quarters for a few hours.  The parades, medal ceremonies, and spontaneous post-war celebrations since the official press release of her miraculous recovery had eroded his patience.  The Normandy SR2, fresh out of dry-dock, was already on a diplomatic trip to the centre of Council space.  Shepard needed her favourite turian in the right frame of mind when they arrived aboard the Citadel.  She could navigate the sea of work-crews repairing the vast space-station on her own, but she relied on Garrus to steer her through the complexities of turian social custom. 

Shepard studied her beau’s heavy plated-brows, ridged nose, and restlessly fluttering mandibles.  He was tense from the top of his fringe to the armoured soles of his boots.  The hard line of his shoulders, the rigidity in his posture, and the menacing stoop of his plated-neck kept those predatory eyes unnervingly focused.  Shepard fearlessly returned the territorial turian’s gaze.  She hadn’t made that suicidal rush to the Conduit, the bewildering trip through the heart of the Citadel, and that crucial final choice for nothing. 

Shepard had wanted that mundane domesticity the instant Garrus had suggested retiring somewhere warm and tropical.  The lure of an ordinary life was more enticing than a bottle of fine dual-chiral wine.  The aggravated turian, seconds from bodily tossing her out of the Main Battery, was an integral part of those future-proofing plans.  Shepard was tired of being the Council’s puppet Spectre, the galaxy’s disparaged messenger, and the Alliance’s archetypal soldier.  She wanted to spend the remaining years of her life, however long or short, loving the only person in the galaxy who had always watched her six.

Shepard curled the fingers of her trapped hand around Garrus’s gauntleted wrist.  She frowned when she felt the hard, frigid, and unsatisfyingly smooth silver plates under her palm.  The shell of his armour, tailored to turian physiology, prevented her from touching the pleasantly warm and rough plated skin underneath.  Garrus’s face, fringe, and throat were the only parts of him still bare.  Shepard casually reached with her free hand, extended her fingers to mould round the angular planes of his chin, and paused when she saw how discomforted he was by her affection.

Her hand dropped to the central console’s cold steel frame.  Shepard’s face darkened as she considered the only possible rationale for Garrus’s sudden fury, iciness, and self-imposed exile inside the Main Battery.  The three nights spent sleeping alone inside their large and empty bed had reinforced her doubts.  Shepard unwound her fingers from his wrist, reined in her disappointment, and extracted herself from that painfully intimate space between the armoured ring of Garrus’s cowl and his workstation.  She spied the patch of brown in her peripheral vision, turned her head, and saw the narrow military cot, folded blanket, and pillow neatly arranged against a sterile bulkhead.

The realisation stung worse than a vial of medigel slathered over a fresh wound.  Shepard swallowed the hurt, schooled her expression, and folded her arms across her chest.  The gesture of self-protection, meant to erect a barrier between oneself and others, was a recognisable social cue in turian culture too.  Garrus was concerned by Shepard’s sudden change from the playful flirt to the disciplined stoicism of the veteran _Commander_.  The articulation of her unhappy conclusion startled him.

“You’ve had second thoughts about us”.

Garrus’s shocked silence spoke volumes.  Shepard smiled bitterly.  She reflected on their explosive argument three days ago, his enraged withdrawal from their quarters, and subsequent squatting in the Main Battery.  They hadn’t occupied the same space since that turbulent stand-off for more than half an excruciating hour every morning, noon, and evening during communal meals.  The crew had noticed the strain between them, but were always too polite to comment on their domestic troubles. 

Shepard didn’t sob when she was miserable.  She was too much the hardened soldier to give voice to her sorrows.  The spark of Garrus’s anxieties caught like a flame to tinder when he saw the tears, shed in silence, roll down Shepard’s cheeks.  The wild-fire of his insecurity blazed out of control when she nimbly eluded his grasping hands.  She was halfway across the Main Battery, striding determinedly towards the door, when Garrus barrelled into her back.

Shepard rocked forward off-balance.  The vertebrae in her spine flexed as she was yanked forcibly backward.  The air whooshed from her lungs when she slammed into Garrus’s breastplate.  The ring of his cowl, a broad circle of fused bone, was encased in a slab of ceramic-plating overlaid in steel.  The back of Shepard’s head cracked on that metal protrusion and in retaliation she drove her elbow into the vulnerable unarmoured space under the turian’s arm.  Garrus’s flanging howl nearly burst her eardrums.

Shepard hated being manhandled when she was trying to make a dignified retreat.  She dropped under Garrus’s guard, shoved him away, and darted for the door.  She raised her fist to pound on the glowing green key-panel when he ploughed into her back again.  Shepard was breathing hard, pinned to the door by his heavier armoured frame, and unable to evade the gauntleted hands capturing her wrists.  The key-panel glowed red, indicative of her wily beau locking the sensor array, sealing the door shut.  Shepard bellowed indignantly. 

“ _Get off of me, Garrus_!  _You could at least have the decency to let me walk out of the Main Battery the same way I came in_!  _We may have our differences but I have always respected your dignity_!  _Damn it_!  _Stop making this more difficult than it has to be_!  _Get off of me right now_!”

Shepard gasped when a hot tongue lapped across the nape of her neck.  Goose-flesh prickled up and down her spine as Garrus’s plated mouth nipped over bare skin.  She heard heavy panting, a flanging purr, and the unmistakable sound of fabric being torn open by needle-sharp turian teeth.  Cold air licked across her upper-back until Garrus pressed his warm plated-brow between her shoulder-blades.  His voice was husky with contrition.

“You’re making everything worse”.

Shepard sensed an opportunity for escape.  She stomped on the toe of Garrus’s boot, cursed when the thin heel of her shoe bounced off the steel-plating, and winced when the jarring blow made her ankle, calf, and knee ache.  Her precarious position against the Main Battery’s door was immediately reversed.  Shepard was pulled up and around to face her adversary.  She glared when the naked skin of her shoulders met frigid metal and her hands were once again restrained by gauntleted turian fingers. 

“ _Don’t you dare blame me for this bullshit, Garrus_!  _I came here to apologise, but you’re not interested in a civil conversation_!   _So why don’t you do me a favour for a change_!  _Back off like the gentleman I know you can be, let go of me, and I’ll forget about this little show of insubordination_!  _If you fail to comply than I’ll have to break off your mandibles and shove them down your throat_!”

Shepard anticipated an intensely violent reaction.  She was unprepared for Garrus’s throat to flush a vibrant royal blue, the rhythmic clacking of his mandibles, and the _crest of horns_ atop his crown to extend like a cockerel’s comb.  She gaped incredulously when the turian cocked his head like a curious bird.  He watched her with an eagle’s predatory focus, cautiously inched forward, and slowly parted the hard lines of his plated-mouth.  Shepard proudly lifted her chin as she stared him down.

“ _I’m not afraid of you, Garrus_ ”.

The turian’s avian eyes glowed a shade of fiery blue.  His velvety growl resonated through that broad armoured chest.  He had Shepard physically restrained but she was far from helpless.  She brought her knees up hard into that same unarmoured spot underneath his arms.  The breastplate and shoulder-guards shielded vital areas of Garrus’s body but left two narrow bands of his black insulating under-suit exposed.

Shepard drove her knees, twice more, into his unprotected armpits.  The pang of sympathy for the turian’s pained roars waned when he sank his teeth into her shoulder.  The bite, hard enough to bruise, made Shepard scream.  “ _You dirty bastard_!”  The heady rush of agony, outrage, and adrenaline fuelled the visceral hunger for revenge.

Shepard spied the underside of Garrus’s throat.  The soft un-plated skin, vibrating with the intensity of his flanging growls, darkened to a dusky navy-blue.  Shepard gritted her teeth, whipped her head forward, and gave the turian a taste of his own medicine.  She eagerly returned that jaw-cracking pressure till her gums ached.  Garrus’s flanging snarl rasped in her ears, moist air kissed her bloodied shoulder, and she gave him the same courtesy.

Shepard eyed him warily.  She laid her head against the door of the Main Battery, licked her lips, and tasted the metallic tinge of turian blood.  She cursed her own stupidity but the damage was done.  “ _Damn it_!  _Now is not the time to forget an antihistamine shot_!”  Shepard mused on the irony of suffering anaphylactic shock after she had slain Saren Arterius, destroyed the Collector home-world, and defeated the galaxy’s greatest biomechanical threat. 

“Death by dextro-allergy, how fucking embarrassing”.

Shepard saw the semi-circular indentations of her teeth in the skin of Garrus’s throat.  She could already see the faint purpling of what would swell into a nasty weal.  His blood, a rich shade of sapphire blue, stained her lips, cheeks, and chin.  Shepard met Garrus’s eye, pealed her lips back, and snapped her flat white mammalian teeth.  She lacked the turian’s sharp serrated fangs, but she had still inflicted a powerful bite.

“ _If you maul me than I’ll maul you, Garrus!_ ”

Shepard tasted the spicy burn of his blood on her tongue.  The soft insides of her mouth tingled pleasantly as if she’d gargled mouthwash saturated with alcohol.  She wondered if Garrus had always possessed that disturbingly natural ability to wear down her defences.  Shepard was trying to sustain the flood of rage smouldering through her veins, but another kind of heat, pooling in the pit of her belly, threatened to drown the first in a wave of arousal.  She brought her knees up again when Garrus, his plated-mouth wet and glistening with splatters of scarlet, rounded on her with a throaty purr.

“ _You want more_!  _Bring it on you sneaky bastard_!”

The turian silenced her protest with a kiss that tasted of blood, sweat, and that familiar _primal_ yearning.  Shepard tried to knee him under the arms again.  She yelped when Garrus ground her hard into the door of the Main Battery.  The rivets, seals, and seams of his heavy-armour painfully squished her chest, belly, and thighs.  The scaly bastard was taking charge of the situation and not above utilising dirty tactics to gain the upper-hand.

“ _Damn you to the grave, Garrus_!”

Shepard writhed like a snake.  She spat expletives while the canny turian exercised his dominance.  She was ensnared, incapable of satisfactorily responding to his hard nips, teasing licks, and heady kisses, and frustrated by the knowledge that she was unable to take control.  Shepard was used to her subordinates falling in line.  She hadn’t deferred to another since being promoted to the position of Executive Officer aboard the Normandy S-R1.

Shepard hissed in annoyance when Garrus’s incisors pricked her lower-lip.  The bite was gentle but firm enough to make her tense like a drawn bowstring.  She shivered when a hot sand-papery tongue lapped the throbbing skin.  Shepard whined helplessly when that tongue was withdrawn from her mouth.  She scowled when Garrus, panting hard, made an intolerable command.

“Stop fighting me, Shepard!”

The esteemed Commander was a stubborn woman.  She had continually survived the galaxy’s most demoralizingly desperate battles, only to emerge on the other side wounded but alive, and all too conscious of the friends that were casualties of War.  She’d lost Ashley on Virmire to Saren’s distorted ambitions, the terminally ill Thane to Kai Leng’s blade, and Legion to his own self-sacrifice for the betterment of his people.  Shepard gaped at Garrus as if he’d lost his sanity.  The slow shake of her head, a gesture of denial, culminated in the turian vocalising a mournful flanging wail.

Shepard’s eyes watered when she heard that despondent sound.  She gasped when Garrus looked at her with the resignation of a person used to disappointment.  She watched the extended comb of his fringe wilt against the crown of his head.  The _crest of horns_ flattened, the lurid flush in his throat turned a sickly grey-purple, and those soulful blue eyes lost that vivacious lustre.  The spark of Shepard’s desire extinguished as her favourite turian bowed his head. 

The gesture of submission, a willing acknowledgement of her authority, made her heart turn to ice.  The gulf of misunderstanding widened when Garrus gently released Shepard’s wrists.  He eased her onto the floor of the Main Battery, continued to make that perturbingly sad sound deep inside his throat, and averted his gaze when she tentatively pressed a hand to her torn shoulder.  The blood, already congealing, came away in dried red flakes.  The semi-circular punctures of Garrus’s barb-like fangs ached but the injury was relatively minor.

Shepard had suffered far worse.  She rubbed her wounded shoulder, watched Garrus stride to his military cot, and saw him flick the folded blanket back to reveal a small red box.  Shepard recognized the scuffed and scratched first-aid kit.  The box was full of basic medical supplies.  Garrus popped the lid, rummaged inside, and removed vials of medigel, a ball of gauze, a roll of bandages, and two blue bottles full of allergy-relief medication.

Shepard mulled over their argument three days ago, their recent confrontation, and Garrus’s heartfelt plea.  Comprehension dawned like a ray of sunlight in the haze of her ignorance.  She had succeeded where the thugs of Omega had failed.  Shepard had broken something inside of her feisty turian beloved.  Garrus was acting like a chastised child trying to correct a tragic mistake.

Shepard took a fortifying breath, swallowed her pride, and slowly crossed the Main Battery.  Garrus tensed as she approached him.  His eyes were lowered, the bony ridges of his mandibles trembled, and his gauntleted hands clamped round the first-aid kit.  The guilt dropped like a stone into the pit of Shepard’s stomach.  She had expressed remorse to grieving families during her career as an Alliance soldier, but she was too unfamiliar with turian culture to know if they practised such courtesies.

Shepard stepped between Garrus’s armoured legs.  She raised her hand, ignored his involuntary flinch, and tenderly stroked her knuckles across his coarse plated-cheek.  She laid a finger upon the bloody lines of his mouth when his mandibles flared.  He tried to speak but Shepard shushed him.  She shook her head, wrapped a hand around the box he grasped, and for the first time she asked for his permission.

“Please give this to me, Garrus”.

The gentlest tug on the first-aid kit seemed to surprise the turian.  Shepard saw his heavy plated-brows arch, his luminous eyes glint with curiosity, and the agitated twitching of his mandibles ease.  She sighed in relief when the box was willingly surrendered.  She had expected a tug of war to ensue over the right of possession.  Shepard peered inside, noticed the bottle of disinfectant, and would have extracted the item if another thought hadn’t made her hesitate. 

Garrus was a member of a militaristic race.  His people favoured discipline, responsibility, and a strong sense of personal honour.  The turian naturally held his own happiness second to the well-being of those that he loved.  Shepard pulled her hand back ignoring the bottle of disinfectant.  Garrus watched as the first-aid kit was laid atop the cot again.

Shepard realised that her fiancé, regardless of his self-image as a _bad turian_ , wouldn’t accept an insincere apology.  Garrus could not entirely disassociate his personal beliefs from the foundations of the very Palaveni culture that had spawned him.  The principles of the _good turian_ were too ingrained into the fibre of his being.  Shepard pondered how she might reassure her beau’s masculine sensibilities; restore his confidence in their relationship, and pacify his sense of turian honour.  She considered his apprehensive plated-face.

Garrus was watching her cagily.  His eyes followed her every motion, scrutinised her expression, and studied the slightest change in her body-language.  Shepard decided that the direct but subtle approach would fare better than a tactical assault.  She had negotiated a ceasefire between the Quarians and the Geth, resolved the three-hundred-year-old Morning War in one afternoon, and taken the first steps to facilitate their mutual cohabitation on Rannoch.  Shepard was certain that expressing her regret to Garrus, in a way that he would understand, would be harder than shouting down the Admiral of the Quarian Heavy-fleet.

She was determined to bridge the gulf between them.  Shepard reached for the bottles of allergy-relief medication that Garrus had laid atop the blanket.  She rolled the cylinders between her fingers, nervously read the labels, and chose to keep one.  Shepard turned her hand, palm up, and offered the second bottle to Garrus.  She waited for him to make a choice. 

Time passed in silence as the turian regarded the item proffered.  The pills contained inside the bottle, a precaution prescribed by the late Doctor Mordin Solus, were an oral substitute for an antihistamine shot.  Shepard had regularly, despite her mild-dextro sensitivity, ingested the medication to appease Garrus.  His belief in the human adage, ‘ _Better to be safe than sorry_ ’, often influenced their intimate relations.  Shepard was thankful when he finally took the bottle from her hand.

She noticed that the container wasn’t immediately uncapped.  Garrus paused long enough to gauge Shepard’s reaction.  The rapid blinking of her eyes to hold back the tears gave away her anxiety.  Shepard wasn’t too proud to cry, but she rarely lost her composure.  Garrus watched her unscrew the cap of her own bottle. 

Shepard cupped that cap in one hand, reached in with the fingers of the other, and withdrew two small round yellow pills.  She would have offered the medicine to Garrus if he hadn’t leaned forward.  She stared when his mandibles spread wide, the plates of his mouth parted, and the twin rows of his sharp turian teeth swung open.  Shepard stiffened as a long muscular blue tongue slithered under her fingers.  The turian’s hot, moist, and rough taste-buds licked over her palm. 

Shepard was distracted by the prickling of Garrus’s incisors.  He nibbled on the tips of her fingers, dulled the sting with a swipe of his tongue, and applied the gentlest pressure.  The dextro equivalent of Shepard’s antihistamine pills was sucked into Garrus’s mouth along with a pair of calloused human fingers.  Shepard clenched her teeth, inhaled shakily through her nose, and repressed the urge to strip the turian of his armour.  The wily bastard was testing the waters of her self-restraint. 

Shepard bit her lip when she felt the cushiony insides of Garrus’s mouth.  His tongue rolled over her fingertips as he swallowed.  The wet suction lasted a handful of seconds that seemed like an eternity.  Shepard slid her glistening fingers free as Garrus relented.  She groaned when he caught her wrist, turned her hand, and kissed the centre of her palm.

Shepard was relieved when the sly turian finally released her hand.  He watched as she tried to recap his medicine bottle.  Her slick fingers fumbled awkwardly as she fought to gain purchase on the ribbed piece of plastic.  Garrus resisted the urge to laugh when Shepard swore.  She jammed the cap onto the bottle, whacked it with a vicious smack of her palm, and screwed it down with a rough twist of her wrist.

Garrus had rarely seen the venerable _Commander Shepard_ so irritable.  She froze when the cool tips of his gauntleted fingers plucked the medicine bottle out of her hands.  She gawked as the turian tossed it into the still open first-aid kit.  The bounce and rattle of the pills inside made her wince.  Shepard refocused her attention on Garrus, assumed that he would hand over a dose of her own antihistamine tablets, and waited for him to act accordingly.

Her initial assumption was correct.  The turian did uncap her medicine bottle, reach inside, and withdraw two round white pills.  He did not, as Shepard had presumed he would, give her the goods.  Garrus recapped the bottle instead, tossed it back into the first-aid kit alongside his own medication, and spread his mandibles wide.  He gave Shepard the equivalent of a cocky turian grin as he opened his plated mouth.

His thick blue tongue rolled out from behind his teeth.  Shepard gulped when the infuriatingly smug bastard daintily laid her medicine on the moist flesh of his taste-buds.  He cheekily turned his wrist, extended a gauntleted finger, and silently beckoned her to come closer.  Shepard preferred to lead than follow, but under the current circumstances, she had little choice.  Her medication was slowly dissolving in Garrus’s saliva. 

Shepard rocked onto the balls of her feet.  Garrus was a full foot and a half taller than her in height.  His refusal to stoop to accommodate her was certainly out of character.  Shepard was used to having her desires immediately satiated.  Garrus was a conscientious lover, who had always guaranteed her contentment, before satisfying himself.  The role-reversal demonstrated the inequality in their relationship.

Shepard reflected on how Garrus, the _Giver of Affection_ , was always considerate of her needs.  He was aware of the vulnerabilities of her thin human skin, took steps to mitigate the chances of injuring her, and in doing so willingly neglected his own innate turian instincts.  Shepard mused that he often insisted she ingest a dose of allergy-relief medication to minimise the risk of anaphylactic shock during their intimate moments.  Garrus’s peculiar habit of filing down his claws was another obvious attempt to avoid accidentally lacerating her soft and thin un-plated skin.  The tempering of his strength, the adoption of human gestures of affection like ‘ _Kissing_ ’, and the way he massaged lotion into the patches of her skin, chafed raw by his plates, proved his devotion.

Shepard smiled ruefully.  She leaned inward, parted her lips, and willingly accepted Garrus’s tongue sliding into her mouth.  She sucked on that slick blue tip to dislodge the antihistamine pills from the sand-papery bed of his taste-buds.  Shepard rolled the medication towards the back of her throat, swallowed reflexively, and would have withdrawn if Garrus’s gauntleted fingers hadn’t threaded through her hair.  The gentle nipping of his plated-mouth made her mewl.

Shepard’s response was more intuitive than conscious.  She surprised her future bondmate when she ceded control.  Garrus’s flanging purr resonated in the moist cavity of his mouth, the hollow of his throat, and deep inside the broad barrel of his chest.  He treasured the rare moment of trust as he curled his gauntleted fingers around the nape of Shepard’s neck.  He was pleased when the woman he loved, unconsciously placating his instincts, allowed her head to be guided back to expose the silky slope of her throat.

Garrus pressed his plated brow into that warm bare skin, opened his mouth, and voiced that same heartfelt plea.  “Stop fighting me, Shepard.  I’m not your enemy.  I’m the turian that loves you”.  Garrus’s heart, pulsing like a drum, echoed the constant clamouring of his instincts.  He wanted to guard this treasure from his rivals, reaffirm his dedication to their relationship, and ensure the permanence of their eventual bond-mating.  He tensed when he smelt the salt of Shepard’s tears.

Garrus anticipated rejection but was reassured when her hands glided over his face.  His eyes closed as he luxuriated in the sensation of her exploratory touches.  Shepard slipped her fingertips under the sensitive hinges of his mandibles. Garrus whined as she rubbed the pads of her thumbs in tantalising circles.  Shepard slid her palm over the plated nape of his neck.

The leisurely drag of her nails over coarse plated-skin incited a flanging moan.  Shepard kneaded underneath the base of the turian’s fringe, pursed her lips, and huskily conveyed her answer.  “Show me how to surrender”.  The shadow of Saren, the Collectors, and the Reaper fleet receded when Garrus enveloped Shepard in his arms.  He grasped her rear, lifted her high, and tenderly lapped the underside of her throat. 

The turian’s flanging purr, reverberating with relief, rumbled pleasantly in Shepard’s ears.  She was carried to the cot, laid across the blanket, and kissed into submission.  Garrus snapped the band of her brassiere that was visible through the ragged tear in the sleeve of her N7 hoody.  He grinned, showing two rows of sharp turian teeth, when she sulked.  Shepard grumbled as he took his sweet time to remove the rest of her clothes.

“ _Damn it, Garrus_!  _Either take them off or rip them off_!  _Just make up your damned mind_!”

Shepard’s cheeks were wet, she reeked of brine, but she wasn’t miserable.  She was _furious_ as her lover unlatched one piece of his hard-suit at a time.  Garrus’s tortuously slow strip-tease lasted five long minutes before he was clad in his snug black under-suit.  The myriad pieces of his heavy-armour were stacked in a neat pile beside the military cot.  Shepard impatiently hooked her legs around his waist when he finally removed his visor. 

The turian groaned when she squeezed his hips.  Shepard repeated the action, thrice more, to punish him for his tardiness.  She yielded when his taloned fingers skimmed under her knees.  Garrus seized the back of her thighs, grinned toothily, and yanked her off the cot.  Shepard cursed as she was upended into his lap.

“You smug son of a bit- _Mmmph_ ”.

Shepard was preoccupied by the thick blue tongue sliding into her mouth.  She was kissed, caressed, and lovingly coaxed out of her clothes.  Piles of grey, blue, and black fabric joined Garrus’s armour on the floor of the Main Battery.  Time passed with soft groans, throaty moans, and a continuous flanging growl.  Shepard learned, under Garrus’s patient tutelage, that surrendering to the one that loved her best, made her neither weak nor powerless.


End file.
